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Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, the Norwegian Lutheran Church offered an apology for hurtful actions and exclusion perpetrated over the years.

“The national church has caused LGBTQ+ individuals harm, suffering and humiliation,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why today I say sorry.”

The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in some to lose their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.

The statement of regret took place at a venue called London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that took two lives and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who expressed support for ISIS, was sentenced to no less than 30 years in prison for carrying out the attacks.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – an evangelical Lutheran church that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as a “social danger of global proportions”.

Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships back in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to legalize same-sex marriage, the church slowly followed.

In 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to marry in church from 2017 onward. Last year, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was noted as a first for the church.

The Thursday statement of regret received differing opinions. The director of a group representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the history of the church”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but arrived “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish as the church regarded the disease as punishment from God”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to offer apologies for their past behavior regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. In 2023, the Anglican Church expressed regret for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, although it continues to refuse to allow same-sex marriages in religious settings.

In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church last year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

Several months ago, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a reaffirmation of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.

“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, stated. “We have hurt individuals instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”